The Conservative Brexit and Foreign Secretaries are reportedly pushing the Prime Minister to drop her “red line” opposition to the UK staying subject to rulings of the European Court of Justice.
The revelation comes as the president of the European Commission doubles down on the demand that the court continues to impose the European Union’s (EU) will on Britain through legal rulings and fines after Brexit.
James Chapman, David Davis’ chief of staff until the General Election, said his former boss and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson might be keen for the Prime Minister to rethink her Brexit vision.
He claimed Mrs. May had taken an “absolutist positions on particular issues”, such as the ECJ, and that the Prime Minister had “hamstrung” the UK in exit talks with the EU.
Mr. Chapman suggested Mrs. May had “set a red line” on the ECJ for the purposes of her Tory party conference speech last year.
“There have been red lines that have been set for him, that make the job he has to do very difficult”, he told BBC Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster.
Asked if any Brexit-supporters in the upper ranks of Government would want Mrs. May to rethink her pre-election Brexit plan, Mr. Chapman said:
“If you consider the two most powerful Brexiters in the Cabinet; David Davis and Boris Johnson, they’re actually pretty liberal on issues like immigration.
“I think that there would be room to recalibrate some of this approach but at the moment she is showing no willingness to do this.
“She said that when she delivered the Lancaster House speech that’s the plan and that’s what she is sticking to.
“Now this is a new Parliament, there’s a new reality. She has to get these things through Parliament. There’s an enormous amount of legislation.”
He claimed if the Prime Minister doesn’t show “more flexibility” and “pragmatism” then “she won’t get this stuff through Parliament”.